1. Field of the Invention
The preset invention relates to a robot simulation device for simulating behavior of an umbilical member such as a hose or a cable arranged on a robot.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a robot simulation device used to teach a robot offline, etc., it is conventional to carry out simulation for replicating the behavior of an umbilical member such as a hose or a cable arranged on a robot mechanical unit.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 10-275007 discloses a method for simulating the motion of a robot, wherein it is checked whether a cable or a hose or the like winds around the robot and whether the cable or the hose is excessively elongated or contracted. In this document, it is described that the winding of the entirety of a non-rigid body around the robot is detected in a small amount of calculation wherein a comparison operation relating to a predetermined angle is carried out, and thus the winding of the non-rigid body around the robot can be checked rapidly and correctly.
In the technique of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 10-275007, the behavior of the non-rigid body when winding around the robot is simply calculated by projecting the non-rigid body on a two-dimensional plane. Therefore, it is difficult to correctly simulate the behavior of the umbilical member, since the umbilical member is actually a three-dimensional article. In other words, in the conventional simulation, when carrying out a physical simulation relating to the behavior of the umbilical member arranged on the robot, it is difficult to adjust each coefficient of a physical simulation model, such as a spring constant and/or an attenuation coefficient, so that the simulated behavior corresponds to the actual behavior of the umbilical member.